BP Oil Spill: A Wedge Between God and 'God's Own Party'?

Rod Dreher had an interesting post up yesterday that I didn't get a chance to write about. Well, better late than never. Dreher, for those who don't know him, is the inventor of the phrase "crunchy con," meaning crunchy conservative. As in, conservatives who believe in the protection of the environment, and who question the inherent power of the free market to generate morally desirable outcomes. (Rod is also an extremely nice guy and one of the most consistently interesting thinkers out there — bookmarking of his blog is hereby encouraged.) A closely related religious philosophy is known as "creation care," because it's very often associated with fundamentalist Christians who believe that God wants humanity to act as the stewards of creation (this is in contrast to those who believe God gave humanity "dominion" over it).

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In any case: If I read him correctly, Rod thinks the Gulf oil spill may be the wedge that divides the unholy (I mean that literally) Bush-era alliance of fundamentalist Christianity and free-market zealotry. The BP disaster is a plain example of the dangers of laissez-faire capitalism. It is plainly the work of man, not God. And it is destroying a beautiful part of creation that happens also to be the cradle of American fundamentalism. So it is not just an environmental crisis. It is, for some, a crisis of faith.

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Sarah Palin's latest push of the History Eraser Button notwithstanding, one of the remarkable things about the oil spill is how non-politicized it has remained. It's a political problem for the president, sure, in that (fairly or not) it is causing his poll numbers to drop. But for the most part the parties have agreed that the first priority is to stop it, not assign blame.

Later, of course, we'll see the partisanship return, and it'll pit anti-regulation Republicans against pro-regulation Democrats. How ironic it will be, then, if Rod is right — if one result of the spill is to drive conservative Christians away from the GOP over an environmental issue. "Drill, baby, drill" was a hell of a battle cry. It would also make a hell of an epitaph.